Onwards 23: eight&four’s ANNUAL all-agency training day
January is the month for fresh starts. Setting goals, making plans, choosing a proactive mindset.
And with 2022 being a year of success for eight&four with 57% income growth, 27 new teammates and numerous industry awards, there was no better time to collectively start thinking about what was yet to come.
We gathered at TechSpace Shoreditch for a shot of inspiration: our annual all-agency training conference. 13 internal and guest speakers were invited to lead sessions on an array of topics, provide exciting industry insights and share their expertise. Key themes ranged from global consumers trends to platform innovation and client best practices. So, what did we learn?
“What clients want”. In other words, how to develop the right partnerships and processes that will accelerate brands’ performances. Gill Huber from Oystercatchers outlined some of the current challenges faced by clients, but also where agencies could step in to offer the best support. A great session to kick-start the conversation and understand how add value, before getting more practical.
We then dived into what drives Creative Social Solutions in 2023, using big players nominated for Cannes Lions awards as examples for best practice. What do recent campaigns by Duolingo, Amazon Prime or Apple TV have in common? They’re all audience first - continuously adapting to social trends and to the evolution of consumption behaviours. This allowed us to define three key areas to push our campaign thinking into: prioritising community and reactiveness, maximising co-creations, and tapping into innovation. This implies, for example, developing strong narratives bespoke to channels, finding the right talents to partner with, and developing the right ideas to maximise native formats.
With this in mind, we took a closer look at Global consumers trends in 2023. And no, it doesn’t mean keeping up to date with the Meghan and Harry saga. In fact, to think like marketers, we need to be clear on the key challenges and motivations for consumers. This is when Mintel, our marketing intelligence tool, came to play. Among new behaviours, we identified the “me mentality” driving consumers to grow their skills and gain a confidence boost, and the “power to the people” mindset in which the brand’s purpose becomes critical for added value. There are other trends that we need to keep monitoring, such as the hyper fatigue and rise of digital detox, and the shift towards international localism and spending intentionally.
That’s all very insightful, but when there’s so much to bear in mind in an ever-changing world, how can advertisers tailor their brand message? With storytelling, to Ian Harris’ point during his session “Have I got your attention?”. He’s the founder of Agency Hackers, providing agencies with insight and support, and the author of “Hooked on You”. He told us why telling stories has the power influence and engage, whether it’s in a blog post, an email newsletter, or a pitch.
They’re even more impactful when paired with Platform innovation from the rise of audio and the Be-Real Effect encouraging Behind-the-scenes content to e-commerce opportunities, there’re plenty of new formats to explore. Delving into recent Video trends reminded us that great storytelling doesn’t rely on quality footage or even on the most polished shoots. Why? Because ideas work harder than budgets, and the best ones are often the simplest. For more food for thoughts, we looked at brands already embracing Creativity and AI to generate creative design and writing. It turns out that if the bots aren’t coming for our jobs just yet, experimenting with ChatGPT can save us time, uncover universal insights, and even spark ideas in the early stages of the creative process.
With so many topics on the agenda, we covered a lot of theory. But we also put our learnings into practice. During a group session Let’s brief better, we worked in teams to understand how to better collaborate and improve our briefing process effectively. A final Proactive Clients Partnerships workshop allowed us to connect with colleagues and brainstorm how to proactively take our expertise to clients.
This annual all-agency training conference was packed with fresh ideas, energy, challenges, creativity and strategic thinking. It brought new perspectives within our teams to guide our creative work. More importantly, it set the tone for 2023, opening new opportunities to build our reputation for creative excellence and maintain a contemporary agency culture.
With multi-disciplined talents, there’s room for everyone to add expertise and make a difference. Bring on 2023!